Five arrested in Versailles in connection with counterfeit tickets

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Fake ticket scheme exposed at Versailles | Five employees at the Château de Versailles are being investigated on suspicion of illegally selling fake tickets to the palace, reports Le Parisien (French language article). The three men and two women were arrested on Sunday after co-workers noticed that the counterfeit tickets were not being put through machines at the entrance. The suspects are believed to have sold re-used and forged tickets in exchange for cash, and may have cost the institution up to €250,000 in lost revenue since August.

Eugene Rogolsky donates 700 works of art to University of Southern California | Collector Eugene Rogolsky has bequeathed some 700 works of art to the University of Southern California’s Fischer Museum of Art. The donation includes photographs, prints, paintings, and sculptures by artists including Judy Chicago, Frank Romero and Laura Aguilar, as well as 55 works by Rogolsky’s friend Carlos Almaraz.

French graffiti artist spared prison sentence | The graffiti artist M. Chat has been fined €500 for vandalism by a Paris court, escaping a prison term that many thought was inevitable. According to Le Monde, the artist was originally thought to be facing up to two years in jail and a €30,000 fine (the prosecution had recommended three months in jail) for tagging a Paris railway station with a marker pen in September 2015 (French language article).

Recommended reading | The name Eero Saarinen brings to mind many things: the imposing (and soon to be vacated) US Embassy in London, or perhaps the now ubiquitous ‘Tulip’ chair. Less well known are his wartime activities, when he worked for the US intelligence services, helping to create prototypes of new weapons. Recently released documents relating to the era have sparked condemnation in some quarters, but Disegno magazine’s Jamer Hunt puts revelations about the architect and designer’s OSS years into context. Elsewhere, the LRB’s Inigo Thomas takes a fresh look at Turner’s Rain, Steam and Speed, paying particular attention to the apparently doomed hare attempting to evade the path of the speeding locomotive. Theories abound: is Turner’s masterpiece really a reaction to Ruskin’s first volume of Modern Painters? Read on…